What Are Your Favorite Automation Tools To Get More Things Done In Lesser Time...?

[Kyle Tully]

If you're on Mac you NEED to learn how to use Automator.

I won't even try and explain it here, but you can do INSANE amounts of automation with it

[JeffLam]

Originally Posted by Kyle Tully

If you're on Mac you NEED to learn how to use Automator.

I won't even try and explain it here, but you can do INSANE amounts of automation with it

Is it a tool that is only for Mac, Kyle? Does it come along with it or..?

Damn, I knew I should have went for a Mac..

Anyways, I myself use SEnuke and I absolutely LOVE it. It is an SEO user's dream!

[Kyle Tully]

Yup it's one of the built-in Mac apps.

There are similar things for Windows... but the ease of use of Automator makes it accessible to everyone.

[Jag82]

Originally Posted by JeffLam

Is it a tool that is only for Mac, Kyle? Does it come along with it or..?

Damn, I knew I should have went for a Mac..

Anyways, I myself use SEnuke and I absolutely LOVE it. It is an SEO user's dream!

Hi Jeff,

Automator is an automation tool for Mac. As far as I know, a good
tool as well. Though I've not used it.

If you are looking for a windows automation tool, you might to
check this out (or my sig):
=> WinAutomation - Windows Automation Software & Macro Recorder - Windows Scripting - Automate and Schedule Windows tasks

This link will give you a heads up on the kind of repetitive tasks you
can possibly put on autopilot:
=> Some Sample Uses of WinAutomation

Hope this helps.
Jag

[cypherslock]

any of BIG Mike's bots and Market Samurai

[MustafaKamal]

FreeTrafficSystems proved to be a killer in automation.

[Steve Snively]

Thanks for this list, lots of great tools!

[Ryce]

Originally Posted by Jag82

"The first rule of any technology used in a business is that automation applied to an efficient operation will magnify the efficiency" - Bill Gates, Founder and Chairman, Microsoft.



Jag

Just a quick point here Jag, the Gates quote is actually:

“The first rule of any technology used in a business is that automation applied to an efficient operation will magnify the efficiency. The second is that automation applied to an inefficient operation will magnify the inefficiency.”



So I think people here first and foremost need to get their processes straight. Also remember Stephen Covey quote: “Begin with the end in mind”

Not that you should delay forever your actions because you dont have yet a clear end in your mind.

my 2 cents

[anwar001]

Can anyone tell me of a tool which can log in to my email account and confirm my emails? If such a tool exists then account creation at various sites can be automated. Thanks

[akasher]

I use macros!

[ildarius]

Originally Posted by Gail Sober

A few I use that I haven't seen mentioned.

statsremote.com - Check about every affiliate stat possible.
mailutilities.com - Several utilities from here.
econfirmpro - Modified to process general email confirmations
pitrinec.com - Perfect Keyboard and a few others.
wavget.com - Typeitin (Maybe not automatic but useful anyway)

statsremote looks pretty sweet

[livewellfinancial]

Here is what i use: Social Marker.

[djleon1]

Besides many of the tools already mentioned here I love Evernote. I use it instead on Notepad for anytype of cut and paste - copying down ideas, web pages etc.

[jplanigan]

After looking through this thread, I went to look at the Winautomation stuff fromt he links given. Looks very nice, but whoa is that an expensive piece of software.

I was thinking that it would be great to give it a bunch of keywords and have it open spyfu.com and grab info for me. Any thoughts on how I might accomplish this without shelling out $129+.

Thanks,
Patrick

[Jag82]

Originally Posted by Ryce

Just a quick point here Jag, the Gates quote is actually:

“The first rule of any technology used in a business is that automation applied to an efficient operation will magnify the efficiency. The second is that automation applied to an inefficient operation will magnify the inefficiency.”



So I think people here first and foremost need to get their processes straight. Also remember Stephen Covey quote: “Begin with the end in mind”

Not that you should delay forever your actions because you dont have yet a clear end in your mind.

my 2 cents

Sorry I missed that. You made an extremely good point.
And so very very true.

Let me add on to that. Automation is not just about putting things on autopilot.

It's also about elimination of unnecessary steps...and optimizing it.

Let's think in terms of:

- How can I make this process complete in lesser steps?
- How can I make this process faster and more efficient with no compromise on quality?
- How can I reduce the manpower involved in this process?
- How can I eliminate potential bottlenecks?

Always be thinking how to improve.

Thanks again for bringing up this excellent point, Ryce.

Jag

[Jag82]

Originally Posted by jplanigan

After looking through this thread, I went to look at the Winautomation stuff fromt he links given. Looks very nice, but whoa is that an expensive piece of software.

I was thinking that it would be great to give it a bunch of keywords and have it open spyfu.com and grab info for me. Any thoughts on how I might accomplish this without shelling out $129+.

Thanks,
Patrick

Just for your info...

From now until 9 September, we are holding a contest giveaway
for 5 FREE complimentary WinAutomation license.

You are invited to participate at:
Giveaway: WinAutomation – Windows Tasks Automator | Freebies

Good luck. You might just be one of the lucky winners. =)

Jag

[Kendall McGuire]

Have to say my personal favorite is SEnuke as it does very well for me and is about as close to complete automation as you can get... but you do have to remember that with any of these automation softwares they are only "tools" not automatic money makers and without using good SEO strategies and techniques you may be a little longer seeing your efforts pay off.

Alot of excellent tools...thanks guys

[jplanigan]

Originally Posted by Jag82

Just for your info...

From now until 9 September, we are holding a contest giveaway
for 5 FREE complimentary WinAutomation license.

You are invited to participate at:
Giveaway: WinAutomation – Windows Tasks Automator | Freebies

Good luck. You might just be one of the lucky winners. =)

Jag

Thanks Jag! I went to your blog post and commented. Here's to hoping I get lucky as this could really help.

Patrick

[wmark]

Originally Posted by Jag82

Hi Barry. Thanks for your input. Allow me to offer an additional perspective.

First off, automation is not a new thing.

You are probably surrounded by it and are using it...but you
just may not be aware of it.

Think traffic light...gantry at carparks...auto-open doors
at mall...your autoresponder....

Automation is not a magic pill. Not everything can be automated.
Say we want to write an article with unique content, that
still requires creativity on our part.

Human intervention is still needed.


Having said that, automation is designed to help us. Not go against us.
It is designed to replace us for tasks that are repetitive, mundane,
and time consuming. So that more precious time will be freed up for us to
spend more time on stuff that matters more.

And I'm talking about going out to build relationships...creating products
...writing your sales page...making sales...
or even spending more time with your loved ones...

You don't have to be spending time manually submitting articles...
doing research...bookmarking and so on... All these can be automated.

Since we only have 24 hours a day, why not spend whatever time
we have on tasks that gives us the most value? And let the computer
handle the rest?

Remember the 80/20 rule (Pareto Principle)? 80% of our results come from 20%
of our effort. That is extremely true for many things.

What if we can focus all our efforts on 20% of such tasks...and
automate the rest (if it is "automatable")? Do you think that can
dramatically boost your results?

Cheers,
Jag

I absolutely agree with you. IM can drain your energy and time very fast. That is why most marketer are suggesting that we outsource the mundane tasks so we can focus on the most important, money producing tasks. Great post!

[getsmartt]

Just realized I was one of the winners over at Giveaway: WinAutomation – Windows Tasks Automator | Freebies Thanks for the heads up and the free software

[coboi]

You can use keyword tracker as well.. But market samurai is way better than the other tool.

[ildarius]

Originally Posted by coboi

You can use keyword tracker as well.. But market samurai is way better than the other tool.

It would be nice to hear more examples of keyword tools that people use and what they like about them. I personally use market samurai also. For automation I mostly use Winautomation which is great at automating anything on the computer, internet related or not.

[vagabondette]

Originally Posted by ildarius

It would be nice to hear more examples of keyword tools that people use and what they like about them. I personally use market samurai also. For automation I mostly use Winautomation which is great at automating anything on the computer, internet related or not.

I started using Micro Niche Finder and I love it. it's like keyword searching for dummies. You can't get much easier than Red, Yellow, Green to indicate whether something could be a go. Even I can understand that!

I'm new to keyword research and I needed something that was quick and easy to understand and this is the easiest thing I've found.

[James Pateman]

Hay, great lists people. Did I mention how much I love lists!

For me, Roboform is a must, and Caffeinated Content for WP is pretty cool also.

regards,
James Pateman

[JesseT]

SEO for firefox
Firebug(Makes finding and changing CSS in CMS systems a breeze)
Google Keyword Research Tool (I've heard of Market Samurai and WordTool but don't use them.)

Is Market Samurai really that good in finding keywords? I use an excel table and tons of research lol.
What I would like to find is a article/directory submission tool thats easy to use

[ildarius]

Originally Posted by vagabondette

I started using Micro Niche Finder and I love it. it's like keyword searching for dummies. You can't get much easier than Red, Yellow, Green to indicate whether something could be a go. Even I can understand that!

I'm new to keyword research and I needed something that was quick and easy to understand and this is the easiest thing I've found.

Have heard a lot of good things about it.
Have you created any web-sites based on those keywords? Would be interesting to find out if you can actually rank for the keywords that are provided.

Thanks

[vagabondette]

Originally Posted by ildarius

Have heard a lot of good things about it.
Have you created any web-sites based on those keywords? Would be interesting to find out if you can actually rank for the keywords that are provided.

Thanks

If you click on the link in my handle you'll see what I'm doing with MNF. The challenge is on hold for at least a week while I deal with an emergency and don't have time to really spend online but it'll be going again soon.

[superaffiliate09]

I use Roboform for form fill up,Pingomatic and Pingoat for pinging my blogs,Mass article control softwares to spin and submit my articles,TubeMogul for submitting my videos to multiple video sites and "Article Video Robot" to convert my articles into video and submit them to various video sites.

[blackbelt]

Yes goods tools make a task so much easier. Like using a nail gun and power saws. I use many of the tools you mentioned. I just had a friend of mine Britt Philips send me a new tool that is free and it earns you money at the same time. I'm new to the forum and not sure if I can post a link here or not, last thing I want to do is get on the bad side of anyone. If any one needs or wants the link let me know. It is free. Never any cost.

I see that I must make 15 post before I can publish link. I really like this forum so keep a look out for it.

[zapseo]

Originally Posted by d3sign3r

Nice big list.. I'm a graphic/web designer so there are fewer opportunities to automate stuff But thanks, I'm sure I'm gonna love Texter !

Cheers,
aLee

don't tell me you've never heard of Action Scripts for Photoshop?

[zapseo]

Is this your product ?

Originally Posted by Jag82

Hi Jeff,

Automator is an automation tool for Mac. As far as I know, a good
tool as well. Though I've not used it.

If you are looking for a windows automation tool, you might to
check this out (or my sig):
=> WinAutomation - Windows Automation Software & Macro Recorder - Windows Scripting - Automate and Schedule Windows tasks

This link will give you a heads up on the kind of repetitive tasks you
can possibly put on autopilot:
=> Some Sample Uses of WinAutomation

Hope this helps.
Jag

[zapseo]

LOL -- I see, an older (not too much older) thread resurrected from the past.
Sorry about that.

My favorite automation tools: unix tools.
I use them on windows by installing cygwin.
I use them on hosting accounts by getting ssh access.
(and lynx, on a hosting account, can save you scads of time
from downloading stuff from membership sites and then uploading
it to your site...)

I'd go nuts without them.

zip and other archivers. A wonderful unix command known as "find".

regular expressions, whatever tool they may live in.

GreaseMonkey -- which makes heavy use of XPath...

most of this stuff makes texter, webdataparser and such unnecessary.

[bugzy]

Our company is using the product from this website

Business process automation

It will save more time!

[anwar001]

Originally Posted by Gail Sober

A few I use that I haven't seen mentioned.

statsremote.com - Check about every affiliate stat possible.
mailutilities.com - Several utilities from here.
econfirmpro - Modified to process general email confirmations
pitrinec.com - Perfect Keyboard and a few others.
wavget.com - Typeitin (Maybe not automatic but useful anyway)

does econfirmpro work with yahoo and gmail ids? Do we have to configure it to make it confirm our emails automatically? Will it confirm all kinds of emails?

[natedb-WA]

Magic ListBot is one of my favorites

[Greg Jacobs]

Well Wordpres Mage of course. Puts up a $ site in 5 mins
.
.
.
.

[tomw]

My most treasured and only automation tools are staff.



Tom

[Jag82]

Originally Posted by tomw

My most treasured and only automation tools are staff.



Tom

Having your own staff is good! While I don't have my own staff, I outsource a lot.

Do think about 1 thing.

When your staff knock off...or fall sick...will work still get done?

What if you can have a "team of staff" that can work for you round
the clock...doesn't rest...doesn't eat...doesn't complain...and just
obediently do whatever you want it to do...will that be nice?

If you read through the great tools mentioned in the thread by all
the contributors here...I think you will discover that these tools
will complement your staff pretty well...maybe even boost their productivity too! =)

Cheers,
Jag

[John Burton]

Some cool ideas here. Heres mine -

Metastock

Google custom search

Google keywords

Jack Duncan's Copyright Records Search

Roboform

If anybody needs any more advice, theres a free ebook on my site which should come in pretty handy.

John Burton

[stfu]

SENuke has again bee the best software that I've purchased. I also use Unique article wizard to submit more content apart from the SENuke campaigns. This has dramatically increased the backlinks to my target website.

[tomw]

Originally Posted by Jag82

Having your own staff is good! While I don't have my own staff, I outsource a lot.

Do think about 1 thing.

When your staff knock off...or fall sick...will work still get done?

What if you can have a "team of staff" that can work for you round
the clock...doesn't rest...doesn't eat...doesn't complain...and just
obediently do whatever you want it to do...will that be nice?

If you read through the great tools mentioned in the thread by all
the contributors here...I think you will discover that these tools
will complement your staff pretty well...maybe even boost their productivity too! =)

Cheers,
Jag

Thanks for the tips, I'll pass them on to my management teams.

Having gone back and read more of this thread, there's no doubt it will be valuable to many. However, I'm not sure I'm all that comfortable with someone starting a thread about great automation tools whilst pitching a product for that very purpose in their sig.

Call me old fashioned...

Tom

[Jag82]

Originally Posted by tomw

Thanks for the tips, I'll pass them on to my management teams!

Having gone back and read more of this thread, there's no doubt it will be valuable to many. However, I'm not sure I'm all that comfortable with someone starting a thread about great automation tools whilst pitching a product for that very purpose in his sig.

Call me old fashioned...

Tom

You are not old-fashioned. Your concern is valid.

And that's why I try to be discreet as possible when it comes to talking
about the product in my signature in this thread. Unless a related question
or comment comes up.

BTW, some of the tools mentioned in here are great (e.g. SE NUKE,
Market Samurai, Incansoft Traffic Mania Bots etc).

I think you team will like those.

Best,
Jag

[P.Sharma]

I have a small list guys but here you go :

• SEnuke
• Bookmarking Demon
• RSS submit
• Power Article Rewriter
• Google Desktop
• Dragon Naturally Speaking
• Market Samurai
• Ninja Link Cloaker
• Cute FTP

Thats almost all the tools I use

[Gail Sober]

does econfirmpro work with yahoo and gmail ids? Do we have to configure it to make it confirm our emails automatically? Will it confirm all kinds of emails?

It runs on YOUR server, you set up the pop3 mail accounts for it to grab your email from.

You configure it by telling it what strings to look for in a url. Just go through all the email and start looking for common strings(words or phrases) like...

"confirm"
"verifyuser.php?*

If you see something get through without being "clicked", just look for something in the url and add it in so that it catches it next time.

I've had my copy for a very long time. It comes with strings related to another online industry but you just remove those and add your own in.

If you're having it check yahoo or gmail accounts, you will still have to log in and delete the email every now and then. If you were mailing from your own domains, the script would delete them for you.

[ildarius]

BTW, some of the tools mentioned in here are great (e.g. SE NUKE,
Market Samurai, Incansoft Traffic Mania Bots etc).

I think you team will like those.

I agree, definetly some interesting information here. I'm still researching the Stock Price calculator that you mentioned, Jag.

I also forgot to mention Gmail! It's very useful for receiving emails from multiple email addresses automatically. It has the POP3 function inside which is also useful for blocking
emails that contain viruses.

I use it for all my info@domainname.com emails.

[Revenant]

I use the following programs for my internet marketing and SEO efforts:

- Traffic bug(auto submitter for RSS, directory, etc. very nice so far during the trial)
- Market Samurai(really the greatest tool I've ever used!)
- Web CEO - Small biz edition (various SEO functions. SEO optimize pages, searchengine submission, keyword research using KEI(keyword effectiveness index), and alot more...)

[nettech]

- Bookmarking Demon
- DigiXmas (Article Spinning/Directory Submitter)
- MS Word, yes you read that correctly...lol


Thats pretty much it, Ive decided to 'declutter' my life, I used to use a ton now I'm only going to use this as an absoloute minimum.

[dilynn3]

Great resources, Jag!

I have heard jetsubmitter is a great time saver for writing articles. I believe there is a free section for basic then you can upgrade for $$/month.

I have not yet (found the time) to use it yet but have it stored to get to in the near future.

I hope this helps someone.

[cryptone24]

One of my favorite that I really enjoy is "Article Drip Robot" to automate the posting of your site to hundreds of article sites.

You set when, where, and how often you want your articles posted.

[checkback]

SENuke
Market Samurai
Reviewazon
Speedppc.

I would highly recommend all of the above.

Reviewazon is great value for money and the owner Brad is highly responsive on his forum.

Jim